


Blood Is On Their Hands

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Series: Season of Courtship [1]
Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Adultery, Gen, Melodrama, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-13
Updated: 2008-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lady Anne Darcy isn't quite the Madonna we like to imagine. (Prequel to <i>Season of Courtship.</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Is On Their Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is an explanation/expansion of Courtship!Darcy's line in Ch 11: _Children comprehend a great deal more than most give them credit for._

‘Oh God, what have I done?’ Lord Aldborough flung himself away, blindly searching for the door.

She said nothing, did nothing. Only the cold breeze from the half-open window brought him to his senses. He was half-undressed, and she completely so. The servants -

He couldn’t keep himself from looking over at her, at where she lay in her own bed, the moonlight playing across her long pale limbs. She could have been a marble carving, a painting of some heathen goddess - then she shivered, and he could only see her as herself, the beautiful woman he had hopelessly loved for so long. Years, now.

‘Anne, Anne - ’ Her face was turned away, pressing into the pillow, her fingers clenched. ‘Anne, say something, please - ’ He lifted the discarded blanket and covered her body with it, gently tucking the corners around her, and when she gave a sort of shuddering gasp, he could only sit by her, stroking her tumbled hair with one hand and awkwardly buttoning his clothes with the other.

She reached out with cold fingers and laid her own hand against his leg. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered, still refusing to look at him. ‘Stephen, I never meant - forgive me.’

‘Anne!’ He pushed her hair aside, touched her icy cheek. ‘This is not your fault.’

‘Yes, yes it is!’ she cried, with the quicksilver suddenness that he so loved in her, sitting up and pulling the blanket about her throat. ‘This is a woman’s power and duty, all that we have - to _refuse._ ’

‘I began it, Anne, you cannot blame only yourself.’

‘I can never refuse you anything,’ she said, ‘I would do it again, and again, knowing all that I do now, - you see what am I become?’ She reached out, wildly pressed her lips against his hand. ‘There is _nothing_ I would not do.’

Unsettled, he said, ‘You need not prove yourself to me - ’

She turned her cheek against his fingers, and wept, his ear only just catching her words before she stiffened, then sat up with every appearance of her usual icy composure and said, ‘The servants will be awake soon. You must go.’

He could hear her begin to sob again when the door was shut behind him. Lord Aldborough leaned his head against it, closing his eyes, heedless of the hot scalding tears racing down his cheeks.

 _Miserere mei, Deus_ , her cry echoed in his head, but he did not want anyone’s pity.

Instead he said aloud, ‘ _Conserva me, Domine_ \- _conserva me_ \- ’ and stood upright, opening his eyes.

He could barely restrain his gasp of astonishment and horror. Before him stood a child of perhaps five, holding a candle in one hand, and a large grey cat with the other. He was without doubt Anne’s, almost every feature hers in miniature. The boy’s eyes blazed in his thin white face; he said nothing, though the cat hissed.

 _But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul._

‘Forgive me,’ Aldborough whispered, and fled.


End file.
